Friday Ramble 01/28/22
This week: Making the most of what you got, racing inspiration, and a gluteus medius success story.
All it took was an inch of fresh snow to turn the trails where I run into a winter playground. More than once I thought about how I should have brought my phone to take some pictures. Hopefully this one I took right before I got started will give you an idea.
My scheduled run that day was “10 miles easy,” and it should go without saying there isn’t anything easy about running 10 miles. Especially in fresh snow that covered the entire trail, including the patches of ice that have stubbornly refused to melt since the previous snowfall.
Still, given the surroundings – enchanted forest, that lovely sense of quiet that accompanies an overnight snowfall, almost no one else around – it was exceptionally simple to get into that easy running mindset. I spent more than two hours making fresh tracks and exploring trails I had somehow missed the other hundred times I ran the route. When I was done, I wondered where the time had gone.
All of that changed the following day when I headed back out for another 10 miles. Only this time the schedule called for the final three to be at tempo effort. Even if I wanted to run fast, which I desperately did, it would have been impossible, as well as dangerous. The snow was no longer fresh. It was stepped on, crusted over, and the layer of ice below was still obscured and even more slippery. Plus, it was nine degrees.
Now, I consider myself a hearty fellow, but all of these complications were just a little too much to handle. My run was so rotten that I felt the need to text my coach and tell him I wasn’t injured.
These are the dog days of winter running. It’s cold and icy and my throat is starting to hurt from breathing in too much frigid air. That late spring/early summer race is just a little too far away to get excited about yet.
At the same time, there are some winter running days that are so sublime they feel like gifts from the running gods. That’s what I’m trying to focus on at the moment.